STUDIOCANAL AND 2929 PRODUCTIONS PRESENT IN ASSOCIATION WITH ANTON CAPITAL ENTERTAINMENT, S.C.A A NICK WECHSLER AND CHOCKSTONE PICTURES PRODUCTION A FILM

BRADLEY COOPER

RHYS IFANS TOBY JONES DAVID DENCIK ANA ULARU

DIRECTOR SUSANNE BIER PRODUCERS NICK WECHSLER SUSANNE BIER STEVE SCHWARTZ PAULA MAE SCHWARTZ TODD WAGNER RON HALPERN BEN COSGROVE

EXECUTIVE PRODUCER PETER McALEESE MARK CUBAN OLIVIER COURSON WRITER CHRISTOPHER KYLE based on the book by RON RASH DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY MORTON SOBORG ADDITIONAL PHOTOGRAPHY MICHAEL SNYMAN SUPERVISING EDITOR MAT NEWMAN PERNILLE BECH CHRISTENSEN PRODUCTION DESIGNER RICHARD BRIDGLAND COSTUME DESIGNER SIGNE SEJLUND MAKE-UP AND HAIR DESIGNER GRAHAM JOHNSTON SOUND RECORDIST TOMAS BELOHRADSKY CASTING DIRECTOR JINA JAY MUSIC JOHAN SODERQVIST MUSIC SUPERVISOR SUSAN JACOBS Short Synopsis

North Carolina mountains at the end of the 1920s - George and Serena

Pemberton, love-struck newly-weds, begin to build a timber empire. Serena soon proves herself to be equal to any man: overseeing loggers, hunting rattle-snakes, even saving a man’s life in the wilderness. With power and influence now in their hands, the Pembertons refuse to let anyone stand in the way of their inflated love and ambitions. However, once Serena discovers George’s hidden past and faces an unchangeable fate of her own, the Pemberton’s passionate marriage begins to unravel leading toward a dramatic reckoning.

Production Story

“It is a love story that is balancing on the edge of where you want love to exist and yet you’re fearfully aware of its danger, and I think that’s fascinating.” Susanne Bier – Director

Starring , Jennifer Lawrence, Rhys Ifans, Toby Jones, David Dencik, Sean Harris and Ana Ularu, SERENA is directed by Susanne Bier, written by Christopher Kyle based on the book by Ron Rash, and produced by Nick Wechsler, Susanne Bier, Steve Schwartz, Paula Mae Schwartz, Todd Wagner, Ron Halpern and Ben Cosgrove.

SERENA was filmed over eight weeks on location in and around Prague, the Czech Republic during the spring of 2012.

The Genesis of the Project

Producer Nick Wechsler’s interest in the story of SERENA was piqued when he received the manuscript of the original book about a year before its publication: “I fell in love with it on my first read. I optioned it immediately and at that time I had a first look deal with 2929, one of the financiers of the movie, and they agreed to come in and develop the project with me.”

To get the project underway, Wechsler needed to find a writer capable of adapting Ron Rash’s book for the screen. He explains: “We looked at a variety of writers and Chris Kyle had a wonderful take – he really seemed to understand the material and we liked his vision for adapting it. We hired him, and we had a very good development experience with him in getting a great script for the movie.”

When Producer Ben Cosgrove started work at 2929, he reviewed a number of the projects that were in development at the time: “I read the screenplay of SERENA and it was absolutely brilliant. I was completely riveted and very moved by the story and I thought this is the one, this is the very special project that you have to figure out how to put together.”

Writer Christopher Kyle was intrigued and drawn to the story from the moment he read Rash’s book. He explains: “My agent sent me the book a few months before it was published and I loved it. I called him before I had even finished reading it. It has such wonderful echoes of great tragedy like ‘Medea’ and ‘Macbeth’ in it, but also this wonderful language of the mountain people, so it was one of those books that as soon as I read it; I knew that I wanted to do it.”

With a first draft of the screenplay in hand, the producers set out to find a director who could bring a unique insight to the intense narrative turns of the film. Already an admirer of director Susanne Bier’s work, Nick Wechsler was very interested in what Bier could bring to the project: “One of the reasons I thought that Susanne would be a good match for this film is that she’s exhibited an incredible flair for bringing out power in relationships between people – she’s very accurate in observing intimacy, vivid emotion and passion.”

Bier was intrigued by the subject matter and explains: “I read the script first and was initially attracted to the world of logging with these huge big trees, and then to the woman being in this man’s world which I thought was fascinating and I could also identify with it. If you look around a set there are 10% women and 90% men and in a way I thought Serena had the same fate – and I found that interesting.” She delights in “telling a story which I believe is meaningful or entertaining for a contemporary audience.”

Ben Cosgrove was also thrilled that Bier was attracted to the film: “I think Susanne completely transformed this project when she came on board. Her particular genius is in her understanding of human nature and what motivates people and how characters behave and interact – flawed characters, who may make decisions that we might not agree with, or might be morally complex. She has done an amazing job of taking these individuals and really bringing them to life and making you feel like these people are not making choices that I would necessarily make myself, but I understand why they’re making them. I’m very moved by their experiences.”

Cosgrove continues: “The actors have signed on to this project as much for the opportunity to work with Susanne as for the material itself. She has a well earned reputation as somebody who is extraordinary with actors and is able to help them reach the most profound levels of their character and their decision making.”

Adds actor Bradley Cooper who plays George Pemberton: “Susanne has a level of believability and a truth meter that you can see throughout all her movies…it was very interesting.”

Jennifer Lawrence, who plays Serena, also echoes an appreciation of Bier’s directorial truth. Lawrence explains: “My favourite thing about Susanne is the way that everything that she does is so real and it’s from this outsider’s perspective so that you don’t feel biased one way or another, which is a very interesting way to do a movie about somebody who is clearly a killer and is wrong. But for the longest time in the movie, the way that Serena goes about everything is that you could easily see both sides of it. There’s no manipulation in her movies. She tells a story and shows you these characters and shows you these situations but never once tells you how to feel.”

Rhys Ifans plays Galloway and was impressed by the manner that Bier presents the narrative of the film: “The story in itself is epic, so it doesn’t need wide brushed visual language to sustain it, so what Susanne’s done, I think, is made it more domestic and real and plausible. It’s not elevated to some kind of opera; it’s a very real world with very real people.”

Toby Jones who plays Sheriff McDowell is also interested in Bier’s story-telling, explaining: “She’s able to sustain several stories simultaneously. She’s very interested in the ripples of moral decisions and how these decisions and responsibilities affect several people and communities.”

The Characters and Cast

“I always feel with acting that there’s a certain character that’s described on the page and then the actor needs to embrace a certain number of those elements, but what is even more important is that the actor needs to bring something very unexpected to the character.” Susanne Bier

Bradley Cooper’s Pemberton Writer Christopher Kyle was immediately struck by George Pemberton’s fortitude. He explains: “When I read the book, Pemberton reminded me a little of Teddy Roosevelt, because he was born to privilege but that didn’t really interest him very much; to have a life of wearing a suit and going to work in an office. So he went out to the wilderness and learned how to chop down trees and build rail lines and hunt and fish and all of that – that exciting physical character who’s going against his background was really interesting to me.”

Adds Bier: “I think that the character of Pemberton with another actor would have been much less masculine and forceful. I think Bradley is bringing a physical force of nature to the character. He’s a very strong-willed, really intelligent macho man and she is a super strong-willed, beautiful, macho woman and I think that creates a very explosive energy.”

For Bradley Cooper: “What’s interesting about George Pemberton is that he lacks any feminine quality. He’s a man who is in search of that other half, that anima, and he finds it in Serena. So when you see him, he’s a very driven, self contained man who has his own moral ethos as to what is right and wrong and it revolves around what suits him and then he meets her and you realize that he’s been looking for this other half. He’s fascinating to play.”

Before shooting SERENA, Bradley Cooper and Jennifer Lawrence had already worked together on David O. Russell’s ‘’ and Lawrence was grateful for this previous collaboration: “We already knew each other very well, so it was extremely easy to just jump into it and to be with somebody that you’re comfortable with. Also, Bradley’s hilarious and that always makes the entire process easier. I had pictured his character in my head and then Bradley showed up on set and blew that completely out of the water – it’s so much better than I could possibly have imagined.”

Jennifer Lawrence’s Serena For Christopher Kyle: “Serena’s a wonderful character. She’s a feminine, beautiful woman, but at the same time she grew up on her father’s logging camp in Colorado and she learnt to do all the things the men do at the camp, so she’s completely comfortable walking through a man’s world and matching their work with hers. She’s a fascinating character, and you really get that she’s the only person that Pemberton could possibly have fallen in love with and vice versa.”

Director Susanne Bier is interested in Serena’s strength, explaining: “Serena is very forceful and an expert rider. She knows a lot about logging and she manages to create a lot of respect by knowing all these things and also by having a very forceful personality. A more fragile woman could have known all the same things she does but not succeeded in generating the same respect in the men.” She continues: “She’s fearless as a character and actually Jennifer Lawrence is fearless as an actress as well. By making very little effort, she’s used to getting her own way, which is a character trait that is self-affirming. Once you get into that, then people tend to do what you want and then it becomes a self-fulfilling thing.”

From a story that on the surface appears quite traditional, it is fascinating to see how the characters, and in particular Serena, evolve. Explains Christopher Kyle: “She comes here and makes a difference in the camp. Helping Pemberton, they manage the men and they start to get better and better at harvesting the logs and getting into difficulty with the environmentalists, but her character really turns when she loses her baby in the eighth month of pregnancy and she finds out that she won’t be able to conceive another, and at that point in the story, something dark is awakened in her and she really loses touch with reality and Pemberton in the end has to fight against her.”

Adds Bier: “Serena gets to a place where she’s devastated and she feels that the only way to save their love is to become murderous. And it’s mad, but there is a certain inner dangerous logic to it and I think that arc is really interesting.”

For Bradley Cooper: “It would be very easy to portray Serena as a stock character, but there’s not one moment where you don’t believe that she’s a human being. Jennifer’s a wonderful actress, her biggest asset is her level of relaxation when she acts, and because of that, everything happens to her as she’s acting. It’s a very thrilling thing to be involved in, as the partner in the scene, as you really don’t know what’s going to happen, but you believe that she knows what’s going to happen.”

Jennifer Lawrence feels that the film’s take on the character of Serena is substantially different from that in the original novel. She describes that: “In the book she’s much more powerful from the very beginning and it’s an amazing thing to read, but when you’re watching somebody for two hours, you have to like them and understand where she’s coming from. I think the most important thing for Susanne and I was that we weren’t making a story about a crazy woman we were making a story about a woman who’s driven crazy by love, so in the movie she’s more cunning, she knows when to act like a lady...and she earns respect.”

Lawrence continues: “If she was a man she’d be very well respected and admired and ruling the camp within days. She’s smart, and knows how to run a business – she knows about wood and timber, and she also knows about men. She understands that she has to play along for a minute, earn their trust and prove she knows just as much, if not more than the men do, and she’s not shy about sharing that.”

Rhys Ifans’ character, Galloway, falls under Serena’s charm from the moment he meets her. He explains: “Serena can come across as cold and cruel and manipulative, which of course she is, but to enforce that it has to come with a certain amount of charm and those very powerful, baffling, wonderful feminine qualities. She’s a woman pretty much on her own out in the wood amongst all those drooling men and she holds her own, and I think Jennifer’s brought that balance…Initially Galloway’s willing to help and go along with Pemberton, but as soon as he comes under Serena’s spell, in Galloway’s fantasy, Pemberton is an expendable male.”

Already a keen rider, Lawrence was very comfortable sitting astride a horse, but was intrigued to learn how to handle Serena’s eagle: “It’s so fascinating to work with an animal that has literally no affection in its eyes at all; it’s looking at what it can eat and how. It’s a fascinating creature to hold on your arm, this thing that only kills, and it’s terrifying because its talons are huge but it’s unbelievable to do a scene with it…The eagle in a lot of ways is an embodiment of Serena; taken from its native place and trained enough, but then set free to wreak havoc, and then brought home again. Also, it’s a huge gesture, Serena never does anything on a small scale to prove herself to the men, it is always huge, and this is yet another example of that.”

David Dencik’s Buchanan For director Bier, the dynamic between Pemberton and Buchanan at the start of the film is very interesting: “It’s typical of the movie, in the sense that it represents a relationship where each part thinks it’s slightly different from what it actually is. Pemberton thinks that they’re , he’s a real man’s man, and Buchanan knows that they’re friends but is also a little bit in love with him. And Pemberton hasn’t even realised, so there’s a bit of tension, it’s intriguing what’s going on between the two of them.”

Christopher Kyle sees the moment that Pemberton returns with his new wife Serena as a turning point in the relationship between Buchanan and his business partner: “It becomes evident to Buchanan that he’s a third wheel and there isn’t a place for him in Pemberton’s life, to the extent that ultimately he betrays Pemberton and forces him to make a very difficult choice.”

For David Dencik, Buchanan is out of his depth in the logging community, but he stays there to be with Pemberton. He explains: “Buchanan is out of his element, in the sense that he is more of an academic person – he is more into the books, the accounting and the business of the industry whereas Pemberton is more into the actual work, and he enjoys that a lot. I think Buchanan enjoys being there with him, but then things get complicated.”

Rhys Ifans’ Galloway Christopher Kyle relished the role of Galloway, explaining: “Galloway is one of the best villains in a novel that I’ve ever read. He’s a local mountain man, an ex- convict, known to be the best hunting guide in the area. He’s Pemberton’s hunting guide and also works at the camp but at a certain point in the story, in a logging accident, his hand is chopped off and Serena happens to be there and she puts a tourniquet on it and saves his life. And from that point on he decides that he will serve her like a loyal dog and do whatever she wants him to do because he believes in some mountain magic, and his mother’s some kind of a witch, and she foretold that a woman would save his life. As the story evolves, and Serena becomes more and more deranged, so he does more deranged things at her bidding.”

For Bier, the chance to cast Rhys Ifans in this role was hard to resist: “I’d wanted Rhys Ifans to play Galloway right from the beginning because I’ve wanted him to play somebody super dangerous; he’s got a built-in kindness to him which I thought would be amazing, knowing that this was a very, very dark person. So it doesn’t become one dimensional, it becomes fascinating. First he falls in love with Serena. Pemberton and Serena are the kind of people that everybody falls in love with, and the minute Galloway sees her he falls in love with her – he falls in love with her strength and beauty, but also he recognizes an intrinsic darkness in her that he can identify with. So he falls in love and then she saves him, so he’s forever dedicated to her and that’s why he becomes her extended arm in terms of doing a whole load of pretty vicious things.”

Adds Jennifer Lawrence: “Galloway loves her almost from the day that he sees her and then she saves his life and he feels indebted to her and this becomes very useful to Serena. But she knew that he would be useful. She saw him having killer moments before, and knew somewhere inside her that he would be useful to her one day. They’re probably very much alike in that they’re tamed for now, but very dangerous.”

Rhys Ifans describes his character as being at one with nature: “Galloway is a tracker. He knows every plant and every insect and beast; every weather system that’s approaching. His mother has the vision; she has second sight, so he’s quite mysterious and aloof and separate from the other men. Industries such as logging, there was a lot of transience in terms of the work force. Of course they would have employed local people but there would never have been enough to sustain the size of this industry so he’s very much possibly the only figure that’s of this wood. He was here first.”

Ifans continues: “I look at Galloway like a wild animal and these people have encroached on his territory and in many ways modern life has polluted his pure soul and that pure soul is like nature, it’s beautiful, but has the potential to be very cruel, so if you view him as a beast of the forest, it’s forgivable the way he behaves…He certainly falls in love with Serena and again to use the wild animal metaphor, she tames him, and when you tame a wild beast you never quite tame them, you can only control them. He experiences unrequited love and in the same way that a cat brings its owner mice, Galloway brings corpses to Serena.”

Ana Ularu’s Rachel For Ana Ularu: “Rachel is the unfortunate one. She is an orphan and can only expect to live a life of servitude. But she’s a strong character at heart and a survivor…Rachel is the kind of character that through a kind of self preservation finds her strength and power throughout the film. She is very human and a young, innocent girl.”

Susanne Bier explains how the character of Rachel is important as it shines a light on how Pemberton reacts when he meets Serena: “Rachel is in love with Pemberton – Pemberton is very loveable. She’s a young girl who works in the camp who is clearly infatuated by him and I think he likes her, she’s beautiful, but she hasn’t made a real impact on him. Actually nobody has made a serious impact on him until he meets Serena. When Serena and Pemberton meet, there is an instant attraction and an instant recognition of a kindred spirit.”

Adds Ularu: “I think she’s really in love with Pemberton and the fact that she really hoped that she could stand a chance with him is even more beautiful, because it gives that impression of her being a child. Something in her believes that she deserves this man because she loves him, and the disappointment that she feels as the film progresses is heart wrenching, but beautiful.”

Once Rachel has her child, however, Bier appreciates that the character still has a degree of optimism: “Part of her wanting to come back to the camp has to do with some weird hope she still carries in terms of her and Pemberton. That hope has been clearly dismissed, but I think she feels that the child might draw his attention, and she’s right…Rachel has a feeling that Pemberton, being the man he is, is also a man who wants an heir somehow, and she does instinctively know that having this wonderful little boy is going to somewhat distract Pemberton from Serena. She knows that, and she uses it.”

Toby Jones’ Sheriff McDowell Christopher Kyle describes the Sheriff’s role in the community: “McDowell is one of the people who wants to turn the land into a national park and he also represents the old South and the local people who are trying to keep alive their way of life that is being changed by the logging barons coming in with their money and corrupting this place and destroying the natural beauty of it. McDowell is one man against all these powerful people.”

Toby Jones explains the importance of the character he portrays on the local community and how he is a figure of hope within such a dark landscape: “McDowell is very aware of his responsibilities. He’s been elected by the community to represent them as Sheriff, and Pemberton and his wife have jeopardized his authority with the opportunities they are able to offer the local community. I think that we feel the tension of law and order against people’s economic situation and the hardship they’re going through and they’re forced to take jobs they might not normally take because of the financial situation. McDowell is not forced to do that, so he’s isolated in the community…he’s a kind of shepherd, and talking to Susanne, I think we decided that he was self taught, but pretty smart and able to handle himself and the Pembertons in terms of reason, but not able to control their effect on the population. So that’s his dilemma. I suspect he’s someone who will favour doing good.”

From Print to Screen – The Story of the Film

Ron Rash’s book Serena begins just after the Stock Market Crash of 1929 and the start of the Great Depression, and is set mainly in a rural logging community in the Smoky Mountains of North Carolina. For writer Christopher Kyle, the challenge is always what to keep and what must be dispatched when adapting the material. He describes his process: “Once you identify the central story then you have, sometimes the painful process, of cutting out wonderful things from the book that there’s just no room for. We have focused mainly on the love story of Pemberton and Serena. The way a passion like that can turn dark when things go wrong, so since we were so focused on that, as we developed the script, anything that didn’t fit with that had to be dropped away.” He continues: “The novelist has an advantage because he can tell us what’s inside the character’s head. Often in a novel you get to hear the thoughts of the characters and there’s no way to do that in a film. So what I do is try to create the language and try to define the characters by what they do in the story.”

The setting of the story was also very important for director, Susanne Bier: “We find ourselves in a real man’s world, in a world where they’re taking down huge big trees and accidents are happening and it’s rough and it’s a world which is definitely not fit for a woman and yet very fast we find a woman in that world and to an extent she’s controlling it.”

For producer Todd Wagner, it was the aspect of the story that resonated with the present day that he found particularly engaging. He explains: “I’m always fascinated by the era around the Great Depression and all that was happening in our country, and even today, with some of the things that are reminiscent of what went on all those years ago, in that you’ve got people who are doing very, very well and then a whole multitude of people who aren’t. And in a way, in this story we’re looking through the eyes of people who are doing very well, in high society, and then you’re seeing something of the underpinnings of people who aren’t doing as well. You see what’s really going on for the average person in society, trying to get a job of any kind, willing to take jobs where there’s going to be great risk to them, where they might even be killed, but doing that because they feel they have no other option.”

Into that challenging setting, Pemberton brings his new bride and an equally dangerous love emerges. Explains Bradley Cooper: “When Pemberton and Serena first meet, it has to be one of those moments when she just takes his breath away and he, in that moment, realizes that he has to have her. His sister Agatha has told him that Serena grew up on a timber camp and tragically lost her whole family to a fire and has really had to survive on her own…Serena’s impact on Pemberton is one of those things where it’s not so much that she changed him, but she brought out sides that may have been dormant in him – some for the better and a few for the worse.”

Adds Bier: “I think Serena and Pemberton are distinctly morally ambiguous and I think that’s why they’re interesting. They’re definitely not saints, either of them, but that doesn’t change the fact that they’re fascinating and intriguing and I hope you somewhat root for them, to a point, but I’d be very disappointed if you are not very invested in them in spite of their moral ambiguity. I find the fact that they are complex and not necessarily all that clean to be intriguing and sexy. Sexiness is often combined with a certain moral ambiguity and in their case it certainly is.”

Director Bier continues: “In the same way that their initial love is like an explosion, there is the same dynamic when something goes wrong. The extreme passion and Serena’s somewhat damaged personality means that if you move one element in their relationship, it becomes extremely dark.”

As the narrative of the film develops, other characters become inextricably embroiled in Pemberton and Serena’s all consuming desire for each other and for power, with no thought for anybody who steps in their way. For Toby Jones, who could perhaps be seen as the moral conscience of the film, the quest for his character is that: “There’s been a fundamental injustice done at the beginning of the story, where Rachel is left as a single mother by someone who is still alive and married. There’s nothing that McDowell can do directly for her, but he sees that she needs help and he’s keen to help her.”

For Pemberton’s business partner and friend Buchanan, the marriage changes his entire existence. David Dencik, who plays Buchanan, explains that: “Pemberton introduces Serena as not only a wife but also a partner without consulting Buchanan at all. And Buchanan has invested money in this partnership as well, so I think it’s an act of treachery that Pemberton does that. He’s gone behind Buchanan’s back and in the middle of this Buchanan is left with some kind of feeling of deception.”

Bradley Cooper can see that his character is caught in a downward spiral, explaining: “At some point in the movie there’s a fork in the road in terms of the two characters’ journeys together and they cease to be a couple and begin to be two individuals together. Pemberton plays the partner in the relationship that’s in denial about it, and it’s only when it’s frighteningly clear what’s going on that he’s able to admit it. You see throughout the movie that he’s aware of what’s been happening, but he just doesn’t want to believe it and the ramifications of what has been going on.”

Bier adds: “I think that throughout the entire film they have an intense love, but the intense love is somehow without boundaries and therefore it becomes very, very dark. I don’t think they ever stop loving each other, the love just becomes poisonous.”

For Jennifer Lawrence, her character’s inability to have a child brings out this dark love. She explains: “Pemberton and Serena have a very fierce love and for Serena it becomes a kind of desperate love when she loses the ability to give him a child, and knowing that he does have a child, and that somebody else could provide him with something that she couldn’t. I think she didn’t feel like a woman any more and she was convinced that he was going to feel about her the way she felt about herself and she couldn’t bear the thought of that and I think that in her post traumatic depression, she thought that the only solution was that this child could not be her competition anymore.” She continues: “Human life is devalued insofar as she can get Pemberton to do what she wants. I think in her case it didn’t matter if they were loggers, or children, or innocent people – they were in the way of her love with George and therefore anybody and anything is devalued.”

Alongside this intense, dangerous and provocative love story, there is the ecological theme which emerges throughout the film and particularly interested the filmmakers and cast. Explains Bier: “Pemberton and Serena think they can kill the woods and kill whoever they like – their love, their passions, their desires, come in front of everything and in the end nobody can nor should do that. As with nature, so with human beings, you are bound to lose if you don’t have dignity, and you can’t survive. So you can say the movie has two levels, it has the passionate, wild, sexy love story, but it also has that story which has to do with the way we treat nature.”

Adds Bradley Cooper: “I think what’s interesting about this film’s time period is that there are a lot of relatable ideas in terms of the current day – economically; not being quite sure what the future holds; but also people abusing the system. Also, environmentally speaking, Pemberton is destroying the forest for his own benefit without any real knowledge of what can eventually happen.”

Toby Jones’ character Sheriff McDowell is at the heart of this narrative thread and explains: “I think that one of the quirks of the script, a rather unexpected feature of it, is that McDowell is friends with a local environmentalist called Kephart, and I think they are intellectual allies and want to protect the very forest that the Pembertons are systematically cutting down and I think that McDowell understands the conservationist arguments on a philosophical as well as a political level.”

The Look of the Film

“All you had to do was look around you when we were filming this movie, and everything was feeding you in terms of who you were and where you were.” Bradley Cooper

It was essential for director Susanne Bier to feel that the environment that was being created suited her directorial style. She explains: “For me, it’s very important to have an organic flow in the scenes, and that it’s for real. One of the things that characterizes many of my films is that there’s a realness to them, and one of the things that I want for this movie is to maintain that, even though it’s a period piece and a different kind of storyline. In order to achieve that, you have to have that ability to move in and out; to open drawers and cupboards. If you wanted to make food, we could make food and we’re really aiming at that type of authenticity.”

She continues: “[Production Designer] Richard Bridgland read the script and immediately sent me some sketches and I thought that was fascinating and then there was a constant stream of images for the next few days. He was very accurate – everything he sent was very much what I had subconsciously been aiming at…The logging camp is like a real, tiny village and I must admit having made movies for years now, I’m still childish, I have this infantile excitement of walking into toy world. You walk into this set and you are being pulled back in time and place and we are in the Czech Republic and we’re filming America at the end of the 1920s.”

To create that sense of authenticity that the film demanded, Production Designer Richard Bridgland went to Tennessee and North Carolina to do some research for the film. He explains: “It was really important to me to go there and see the place, because we’re filming the whole thing in the Czech Republic, so there are no physical references to anything here, apart from the forest. I took off to Tennessee for a week and spent much of my time at a logging museum and with a whole bunch of people who knew all about the logging camps - their fathers and grandfathers had worked in the logging industry. I went into the Smoky Mountains and up the trails where the camps had been. It was a unique way of life that they had and to see it all was invaluable. They set up logging camps in the mountains and they’d send a train line in, special trains that they’d built, and all of that needed to be seen. I went to the parks archives and saw all the hundreds of photos that they have there – a way of life that is just lost now.”

With this wealth of research material in hand, Bridgland set out to create a real logging camp in the forest just outside of Prague: “We created logging life as it was in the 1920s in North Carolina. When we built our camp, it’s not really a set, we literally built a camp. Its cabins are very much as they were built at the time, with the same architectural practice, and apart from the fact that we now have motorised chain saws instead of hand saws, pretty much built in the same way as well, so it’s been a really interesting experience. What we’ve created is an entire environment, but it feels real, because it’s pretty close to being real…We wanted to create a set that was an exterior back lot, but then you could walk into any of the rooms in any of the cabins at any point so that the drama was unimpeded.”

Toby Jones is very interested in this method of design and is intrigued how Bier and her cinematographer Morten Soborg use space. He says the director: “Searches out spaces and she doesn’t necessarily fix the angles before hand around which the camera is operating, that’s why these sets allow for spontaneous decisions. Often one doesn’t know where the camera’s going. That relates to the sense of liberty that’s in these spaces and that’s very interesting to work in a period film like that. You associate that kind of camera work with contemporary stories, so I think that will give a new style to a period piece.

Adds Bier: “You can say that the cinematography in this movie, it has to look beautiful, the lighting needs to be beautiful, but it has to be dynamic. We don’t make set ups where the actors feel they have to stand in a certain way and look in a certain way. The cinematography is an extension of the human interaction.”

Bridgland also worked very closely with costume designer Signe Sejlund and cinematographer Morten Soborg. For Bridgland: “The collaboration between Signe, Morton and I has been a very tight process because we’ve discussed palettes and colours very, very closely. A lot of it has been with a real eye to the psychological impact of colour, so I’ve tried to dial back on the colour in the sets in many instances in order that the colour in the costumes could come forward and there’s been a very interesting collaboration with Signe to do that. We work very closely on the kinds of characters you’ll see in the background of places, and generally there’s been a lot of detail orientated work.”

Susanne Bier and costume designer Signe Sejlund have collaborated on several of Bier’s previous films and she asserts that: “Signe has amazing taste and she’s very creative and very accurate and like Richard Bridgland it never comes before the human action. The costumes and set design are, at all times, an extension of the psychology of the film and who the characters are, the way they work and live and particularly for costumes, it’s a very important tool in terms of addressing a specific psychology at a specific time and Signe is masterly in using that.”

Sejlund and Bier have specific shorthand and demonstrate great trust throughout their collaboration. Explains Sejlund: “The way Susanne and I work together – she doesn’t say much which is scary and very nice at the same time. She doesn’t say what’s in her mind, she lets me make up my own universe and she didn’t want to talk to me before I really knew the script and had made my mood boards. It’s an interesting way to start a movie.”

In order to immerse herself in 1929 America, Sejlund: “Listened to period music, only watched movies from that period, looked at art books and just was completely in this period to get all my senses clear. This script is very interesting because it has so many different social environments. We are in the logging camp with really, really poor people – it’s the Depression, everybody is poor and starving and they’ve lost everything. And then we are also in a very rich hunt club and ballroom. We are in two different towns, Waynesville really poor, and Kingsport, richer, so we got around so many areas.”

She continues: “Richard [Bridgland] sent me some pictures from the research he’d done in the Smoky Mountains and between his pictures and my pictures there were so many similarities, which was very nice, and immediately I felt like we had a really good connection and I think his ideas and mine work very well together. We discussed a palette of colours and we agreed from the beginning on the colours for costume. This environment especially the logging camp is very brown, grey green, muddy, soil, dust, so there has to be some colours in the movie, so we agreed that Serena should have colour.”

Not unusually, the character of Serena has the most diverse costumes. Explains Sejlund: “She’s the one who changes most and has most costumes. She is from a very wealthy family, she knows exactly how to behave correctly in different environments. She is both a man and a woman and so I had to find costumes for her where she could look extremely stunning and beautiful and sexy and at the same time we would believe that she could actually work with wood; pick up an axe and talk with the men and they would obey her.”

Pemberton has certain items in his wardrobe that are quintessentially Pemberton. Sejlund describes that: “He has a leather coat which is very much him. I think his coat and hat is a silhouette of a man and he’s very strong and also very gentle. His colour palette blends more in with nature where Serena’s sticks out.”

Adds Bradley Cooper: “I love putting on George’s outfit every day and walking onto the set as if he was coming into his camp and I loved spending time there – I would eat in the commissary and sit in his office – it was incredible. The production design on this movie is so helpful and then the wardrobe was key, especially his boots, which informed how he walks.”

Sejlund adored: “My favourite dandy Buchanan – it’s really lovely that there is a character like Buchanan in the script because all of a sudden it was possible to do something that stuck out a bit, and David Dencik is such a wonderful actor and the way he plays Buchanan is just perfect. He makes those little cravats and silk shirts dandy in the most interesting way. Being gay at that time it was not easy, so it’s always hidden, but I think the costumes might help him to show it in an elegant way. He’s always wearing a little silk scarf.”

For Sejlund the character of Galloway took her away from her traditional designing style: “Galloway is very interesting – at the beginning I didn’t want any of the actors to wear costumes. You shouldn’t really think so much about costumes, but for Galloway in the beginning I thought he could be different. For me he’s kind of a musketeer – Serena’s musketeer. He’s so mysterious but also fragile and very, very interesting, and because in make-up he has a wig and teeth and a contact lens, you cannot immediately see what’s wrong, but there’s something weird about this character. So it’s all about finding a level where it’s not too much, where we still believe in him. He has little trophies on the inside of his jacket which you only see once in a while, maybe very little, but it’s there – little voodoo things maybe, we don’t know, but he’s a wonderful character.”

The Locations

Although SERENA is mainly set in North Carolina in the United States, the production chose to shoot the film entirely in Prague and the surrounding countryside of the Czech Republic. Executive producer Peter McAleese explains why: “Initially, our decision was based on finance as these things usually are, in that there’s a very attractive rebate available in the Czech Republic. I think that was allied with the fact that the locations here are uncannily similar to those in the Smoky Mountains which is where the story is actually set. So we found it easier than you might imagine to create the illusion that we’re in the Appalachian Mountains.”

He continues: “We were lucky in that many of the locations in the film are set in mountainous forest regions and that allowed us to get the whole unit out of the urban environment of Prague, because although it’s a beautiful city, it’s more difficult to imagine yourself as a 1930s American if you’re constantly surrounded by European architecture.”

For the logging camp, it was difficult to find a location where there was a perfect forested valley which was correctly sunlit and offering enough space adjacent to the set to erect a base camp for the production. Finally, close to the village of Nizbor, just outside of Prague, the filmmakers found the perfect spot.

The search for Kingsport and Waynesville was even more difficult as the location needed to be next to a train track. The village of Kolec provided just that and production designer Richard Bridgland then had to construct first one town (Waynesville) and then another (Kingsport), supposedly further down the train line. Although he used the same buildings, Bridgland dressed them entirely differently to show the disparity in the economic prosperity of the towns. He explains: “The station is built on a real railway line which we closed down for the days of shooting. While we were building we had trains going past, but on the days we shot there, we closed down a real bit of railway line, which was a fantastic opportunity, so we could create a real station.” He continues: “The train that we used is an original train from the 1930s which we got from a railway enthusiast museum. We chose all the cars individually and revamped all the cars on the inside.”

The production did move into Prague for a few days of shooting, when the National Museum hosted the elegant hotel and the Bank of Boston scenes. Explains Bridgland: “There’s some wonderful contrasts in the movie as it moves between the real poverty that you found in a logging camp which was wooden shacks and where people lived in these string cabins which were literally off loaded from trains and that people would rent for $1 a month. Then by contrast there’s this wonderful hotel that Pemberton and Serena go to in Kingsport where they attend a big dinner and dance reception and we’ve been really lucky that we’ve been able to get the National Museum in the centre of Prague for that. It was closed for five years and for the first year of its closure it was completely empty – they had taken everything out, so we were able to move in and use it, which gave us terrific production value. It’s a very good contrast to the logging camp.”

About the Cast

Bradley Cooper – Pemberton

With extensive training and experience in theater, television and film, Bradley Cooper is one of the Industry’s most sought after actors.

Cooper is currently filming The Weinstein Company’s Untitled John Wells Project , directed by John Wells and written by Steven Knight, starring alongside Sienna Miller. The film chronicles the story of Chef ‘Adam Jones’ (Cooper) who destroys his prestigious status in a blaze of decadence and out of control behaviour. He cleans up his act and returns to the restaurant scene, determined to redeem himself by assembling a group of top chef’s to achieve his third Michelin star. Cooper is currently filming in and the film will release in 2015.

Cooper will next be seen in the Warner Brothers film American Sniper , which he produced and stars in, directed by Clint Eastwood and based on an adaptation of the autobiography of Navy SEAL Chris Kyle. Cooper optioned the book

American Sniper: The Autobiography of The Most Lethal Sniper In U.S. Military History in 2012 under his production company. The film tells the harrowing story of Texas native Kyle’s journey through multiple Iraq tours ending with his tragic death in February 2013. American Sniper will be released on December 25, 2014.

Most recently, Cooper lent his voice for the character ‘Rocket Raccoon’ in Disney’s Marvel, summer action-adventure Guardians of the Galaxy . Directed by , the film has quickly become the surprise hit of the summer and in three weeks has made over $400million worldwide. Guardians of the Galaxy was released on August 1, 2014.

This fall, Cooper will reprise the role of ‘John Merrick’ in The Elephant Man on Broadway starring alongside Patricia Clarkson and Allesandro Nivola and directed by Scott Ellis. Cooper previously performed the role at the Williamstown Theatre Festival last summer. The play will be performed at the Booth Theatre and will begin previews on Friday, November 7 th . The Elephant Man will open on Sunday, December 7 th and runs through Sunday, February 15, 2015.

In 2015, Cooper will star in Sony Pictures’ Untitled Cameron Crowe film opposite and Rachel McAdams and produced by Scott Rudin. The film features Cooper as a military contractor on an undercover military launch mission in Hawaii. Sony Pictures will release the film on May 29, 2015.

Cooper was nominated for an Oscar® for Best Supporting Actor for his portrayal as the unhinged FBI Agent, Richie DiMaso in the David O. Russell drama American Hustle . Starring opposite , Amy Adams and Jennifer Lawrence, American Hustle was nominated for 10 ®, including Best Picture. Cooper received nominations for a BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role, a Broadcast Film Critics Association Award, a Satellite Award and a Golden Globe nomination for Best Supporting Actor. The cast received the Award for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture.

In April 2013, Cooper starred in the critically acclaimed Focus Features film The Place Beyond The Pines , directed by Derek CianFrance opposite , Eva Mendes and Dane DeHaan. Cooper portrayed the character of ‘Avery’, a rookie cop navigating a department ruled by a corrupt detective. The film was recognized by the National Board of Review as one of their top 10 films of 2013.

That same year, Cooper starred opposite Ed Helms and Zach Galifianakis in the third instalment of the comedy trilogy, The Hangover Part III . Cooper also starred in the previous instalments, all directed by Todd Phillips, which collectively grossed over $1.4 billion globally. The Hangover Part II smashed opening weekend records for an R-rated comedy, and The Hangover, which grossed $469.2 million worldwide, still ranks domestically as the highest grossing R-rated comedy ever.

In 2012, Cooper was nominated for an Oscar® for Best Actor for portrayal of

‘Pat Solatano’ in the critically acclaimed, Weinstein Company drama Silver Linings Playbook . The film, directed by David O. Russell, and also starring Jennifer Lawrence, Robert De Niro, Jacki Weaver and Chris Tucker, was nominated for eight Academy Awards®, including Best Picture. Cooper was recognized by the National Board of Review for Best Actor and won the Broadcast Film Critics Association Award for Best Actor in a Comedy for his performance. Cooper also received a Golden Globe Award nomination for Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture – Comedy or Musical and a Screen Actors Guild® nomination for Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Leading Role, as well as nominations from the Independent Spirit Awards for Best Male Lead, and the BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Lead Role.

In March 2011, Cooper starred in the box- office smash, Limitless distributed by Relativity Media. Cooper also served as a producer on the film. Directed by Neil Burger, Cooper starred opposite Robert De Niro and Abbie Cornish. Cooper portrayed a struggling writer who becomes a financial genius with the help of a mysterious pill that enables him to access 100 percent of his brain.

Cooper’s additional film credits include; The Words, The A-Team, New York I Love You, He’s Just Not That Into You, Hit And Run, Yes Man, All About Steve, Wedding Crashers and Wet Hot American Summer .

In the summer of 2012, Cooper starred in Bernard Pomerance’s The Elephant Man directed by Scott Ellis, on the Nikos Stage at the Williamstown Theater Festival in Williamstown, Massachusetts. Cooper made his Broadway debut in the spring of 2006 in Joe Montello’s production of Three Days Of Rain opposite Julia Roberts and Paul Rudd. In July 2008, Cooper joined the cast of the critically acclaimed Theresa Rebeck play The Understudy , which premiered at Williamstown Theatre Festival to rave reviews and sold out performances.

On television, Cooper portrayed the character of ‘Will Tippin’ on the hit ABC series Alias , which was on the air for five seasons. Cooper also starred in the FX Drama Nip/Tuck as well as Fox’s single-camera comedy Kitchen Confidential , based on the trials and tribulations of renowned chef Anthony Bourdain. His other television credits include Jack & Bobby, Touching Evil, Law & Order: SVU, Trial by Jury , and a guest appearance on Sex and the City .

In March 2012, Cooper and Warner Bros. entered into a two-year first look deal for his Production Company 22nd & Indiana Pictures. In May 2014, Cooper joined forces with longtime friend and partner, Todd Phillips to form a production company (currently unnamed) as producing partners for a three-year, first-look production deal with Warner Bros. Pictures.

Born in Philadelphia, PA, Cooper graduated with honors in the English program at Georgetown University. After moving to New York City, he obtained his Masters in the Fine Arts program at the Actors Studio Drama School at the New School University.

Jennifer Lawrence – Serena

A natural talent, with a striking presence and undeniable energy, Academy Award® winner Jennifer Lawrence is one of Hollywood's most gifted actresses.

Recently, Lawrence was seen in Bryan Singer’s X-Men: Days of Future Past , reprising her role as ‘Raven’ and ‘Mystique’, opposite Hugh Jackman, Michael Fassbender, James McAvoy, Halle Berry, Anna Paquin, Ellen Page and Nicholas

Hoult. Prior to that, Lawrence made her X-Men debut in Matthew Vaughn’s X- Men: First Class , opposite Jackman, Fassbender and McAvoy, as well as Rose Byrne, January Jones, Nicholas Hoult, Zoe Kravitz and Kevin Bacon.

Lawrence can currently be seen starring as ‘Katniss Everdeen’ in the global tent

pole film, The Hunger Games , adapted from the popular science fiction adventure novels by Suzanne Collins. The film series takes place in a dystopian post- apocalyptic future in the nation of Panem, where boys and girls between the ages of twelve and eighteen must take part in the Hunger Games, a televised annual event in which the tributes are required to fight on behalf of their district. The story is a tribute to freedom, personal and collective power, as well as survival and family. To date, The Hunger Games and The Hunger Games: Catching Fire have been theatrically released worldwide, with The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 1 scheduled for release November 2014 and The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 2 scheduled for release November 2015.

Upcoming, Lawrence will reunite with David O. Russell for the biopic, Joy , based on the life of a struggling Long Island single mom who became one of the country's most successful entrepreneurs with her invention of the Miracle Mop. Twentieth Century Fox is set to release the film December 25th, 2015.

Additionally, Lawrence has signed on to star in and produce The Rules of Inheritance , an adaptation of Claire Bidwell Smith's recent memoir about a woman who loses both her parents to cancer as a young adult. Susanne Bier is set to direct the film which will be written by Abi Morgan. The film marks the second collaboration between Bier and Lawrence after Serena . Lawrence is also attached to star in Gary Ross’ adaptation of the classic John Steinbeck novel, East of Eden , for Universal Pictures.

Lawrence’s critically acclaimed performances include David O. Russell’s American

Hustle , co-starring Christian Bale, Amy Adams and Bradley Cooper in her portrayal of ‘Roslyn,’ a contentious suburban housewife to a con-artist husband. Her first collaboration with David O. Russell was on Silver Linings Playbook where she starred alongside Bradley Cooper, Robert DeNiro and Jacki Weaver as ‘Tiffany,’ a young widow suffering from depression. Her breakthrough performance came in Debra Granik’s Winter’s Bone in which Lawrence starred as ‘Ree,’ a young girl facing a dangerous social terrain as she hunts down her drug- dealing father while trying to keep her family intact. To date, those three film credits have garnered Lawrence an Academy Award® for Best Actress, with two additional Academy Award® nominations for Best Actress and Best Supporting Actress. In addition, Lawrence has received a BAFTA® Award for Best Actress and an additional BAFTA® Best Supporting Actress nomination; two Golden Globe Awards® for Best Performance by an Actress in a Motion Picture Comedy or Musical and Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role Motion Picture Drama, as well as a Golden Globe Award® nomination for Best Performance by an Actress in a Motion Picture Drama; a Screen Actors Guild Award® for Lead Role, as well two Screen Actors Guild Award® nominations for Lead Actress and Supporting Actress.

Additional film credits include Mark Tonderai’s House at the End of The Street opposite Elisabeth Shue and Max Thieriot; ’s The Beaver opposite Mel Gibson and Anton Yelchin; Drake Doremus' Like Crazy opposite Anton Yelchin and Felicity Jones; 's Poker House opposite Selma Blair and Bokeem Woodbine, for which she was awarded the prize of Outstanding Performance in

the Narrative Competition at the 2008 Los Angeles Film Festival; and Guillermo Arriaga's directorial debut The Burning Plain , opposite Charlize Theron and Kim Basinger. The film premiered at the 2008 Venice Film Festival where Lawrence won the Marcello Mastroianni Award for Best Young Actor.

On television, Lawrence’s credits include three seasons of the TBS series The Bill Engvall Show . The comedy, written and created by Bill Engvall and Michael Leeson, follows the life of ‘Bill Pearson' (Engvall), a Denver suburban family counsellor whose own family could use a little dose of counselling.

Reigning from Louisville, Kentucky with a childhood of local theatre experience to her credit, Lawrence travelled to New York at age fourteen to explore a professional career in acting.

Rhys Ifans - Galloway

Rhys Ifans is a gifted actor known for his enduring presence, his distinctive approach to comedy, and his ability to elegantly disappear into compelling and complex roles that are always memorable.

Ifans was most recently seen in Judd Apatow's, The Five-Year Engagement , opposite Jason Segel and Emily Blunt in a comedy that charts the ups and downs of a couple's relationship. His next project is Panda Eyes directed by , in which Ifans joins an ensemble cast including Jonathan Rhys Meyers, Claire Forlani and Sophie Turner . Most recently Rhys featured in season two of the CBS crime series Elementary, starring alongside Lucy Liu and Jonny Lee Miller. His next project will be Madame Bovary, directed by Sophie Barthes, playing opposite Mia Wasikowska and Paul Giamatti, due to be released later this year. In 2014 Rhys has finished the film Len & Co with Juno Temple directed by Tim Godsall and played in the Steven Bernstein directed Dominion. Rhys’ latest project is directed by and is due to be completed later this summer.

Rhys Ifans is perhaps the most commercially known for his scene-stealing performance in Roger Michell's Notting Hill (1999) where he starred opposite Julia Roberts and Hugh Grant. For this portrayal of Hugh Grant’s roommate ‘Spike’, Ifans received a BAFTA nomination for Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role.

Additional credits include: Anonymous, directed by Roland Emmerich; Spiderman , also starring , Emma Stone and Martin Sheen; the closing chapter to the Harry Potter franchise, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows ; Noah Baumbach's dark comedy, Greenberg with Ben Stiller; , starring ; Shekhar Kapur's Elizabeth: The Golden Age; 's Hannibal Rising ; Once Upon A Time in the Midlands , directed by Shane Meadows; Michel Gondry's comedy drama, Human Nature , where he starred opposite Patricia Arquette; Mike Figgis' Hotel ; Lasse Hallström's The Shipping News; and Howard Deutch's comedy, The Replacements, where he starred alongside Keanu Reeves and Gene Hackman.

On television, he played the role of in Terry Johnson's Not Only But Always , for which he won the BAFTA for Best Actor. He also appeared in Shakespeare Shorts ; Trial and Retribution ; The Two Franks ; Judas and the Gimp ; Night Shift ; Spatz ; Burning Love ; and Review . Most recently Rhys played the lead in Marc Evans' Sky Playhouse short Gifted. In theater, Ifans starred at the in 's Don Juan in Soho, Robert Delamere's Accidental Death of an Anarchist , and 's Bad Finger . He was seen at the National Theatre in Matthew

Warchus' and Roger Michell's, Under Milk Wood ; the Duke of York Theatre in Hettie MacDonald's Beautiful Thing ; at the Royal Court Theatre in James MacDonald's Thyesters ; and at the Royal Exchange in Braham Murray's Smoke and Ronald Harwood's Poison Pen . Most recently Rhys starred in the one man show Protest Song at the National Theatre Shed.

Beyond film and television, Rhys made a guest appearance for the rock band Oasis in the video for their single The Importance of Being Idle , for which he accepted their award for Video of the Year at the 2005/6 NME Awards.

Ifans was born and raised in Wales, where he attended youth acting schools at Theatre Clwyd before going onto the Guildhall School of Music and Drama.

Toby Jones – Sheriff McDowell

Multi-award winning Toby Jones is one of the most distinguished film, television and stage actors of his generation. He studied Drama at the University of Manchester from 1986 to 1989, and at L'École Internationale de Théâtre under Jacques Lecoq in Paris from 1989 to 1991.

2014 is an exciting year for Toby. In September, the Golden Globe and BAFTA nominated actor will star in the new BBC Two drama, Marvellous . The 90 minute film tells the beautiful, funny, true story of ‘Neil Baldwin’ (played by Toby), a man once labelled with 'learning difficulties' who confounds expectations and whose life defies limitations. In October, Toby will also be seen as the lead, opposite Mackenzie Crook, in BBC's Four's brand new comedy, Detectorists . Written and directed by Mackenzie, the story follows the relationship between two friends who share a passion for metal detecting.

Early next year Toby will be seen in M.Night Shylaman’s new ten part drama series Wayward Pines for Fox international. Toby plays Dr. Jenkins, a charismatic and mysterious psychiatrist who treats a Secret Service agent (Matt Dillon) who arrives in a small Idaho town looking for two missing agents. Toby has also completed filming the mob thriller God Only Knows alongside Ben Barnes, Leighton Meester and Harvey Keitel.

Toby won both the ‘Capri European Talent Award’ and the award for ‘Best British Actor’ at the London Film Critics Circle awards for his leading role as ‘Truman Capote’ in Infamous. This crime drama tells the story of writer, Truman Capote who, whilst researching his book, develops a close relationship with convicted murderer Perry Smith. Toby starred alongside , Sandra Bullock and . He was also nominated for ‘British Supporting Actor of the Year’ at the 2008 London’s Critics’ Circle Film Awards for his role in The Painted Veil . Toby starred with Naomi Watts and Edward Norton.

2012 saw Toby play the lead, ‘Gilderoy’, in Peter Strickland’s Berberian Sound Studio . The film received exceptional, five star reviews with naming it “one of the most remarkable British movies of the past couple of years” and commenting that Toby appears as “one of the cinema's finest character actors at work today.” For his performance, Toby won British Actor of the Year at the London Critics Circle Film Choice Awards in 2013 and won Best Actor at the British Independent Film Awards in 2012 and Best Actor at the London Evening Standard Awards in 2013. The film, set in the ‘70s, follows a naïve British sound engineer who loses his grip on reality when he takes a job on an Italian horror

film. 2012 also saw Toby in the US box office hit, The Hunger Games , based on Suzanne Collins’s bestselling novel of the same name. Set in a future where the Capitol selects a boy and girl from each of the twelve districts to fight to the death on live television. Toby played the role of ‘Claudius Templesmith’ the announcer for The Hunger Games , alongside Jennifer Lawrence, Josh Hutcherson, Liam Hemsworth, , Donald Sutherland and Elizabeth Banks. He reprised his role in the sequel The Hunger Games: Catching Fire last year.

In 2011, Toby appeared in My Week With Marilyn alongside Michelle Williams,

Kenneth Branagh and Eddie Redmayne and played ‘Percy Alleline’ in multi award winning film Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy that counted Gary Oldman, Colin Firth, , , and Kathy Burke amongst its stellar cast. Toby also starred alongside Chris Evans, Hayley Atwell and Samuel L. Jackson as ‘Dr Arnim Zola’ in Paramount Pictures’ Captain America: The First Avenger and returned for The Winter Soldier earlier this year.

In 2009, Toby was nominated again in the ‘British Supporting Actor of the Year’ category at the London’s Critics Circle Film Awards for his role as ‘Swifty Lazar’ in Universal Pictures Frost/Nixon . A dramatic retelling of the post-Watergate television interviews between British talk-show host David Frost and former president Richard Nixon, Toby starred alongside Frank Langella and Michael Sheen. Toby is also known as the voice of ‘Dobby’ the house elf in the highest- grossing film series of all time, Harry Potter And The Chamber Of Secrets and then reprised his role in Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows – Part 1 (2010), for which he was nominated for ‘Best Digital Acting Performance’ at the Broadcast Film Critics Association Awards. Toby has also voiced the character of ‘Silk’ in Stephen Spielberg’s 2011 Golden Globe winning The Adventures Of Tintin: The Secret Of The Unicorn .

This year, he led the cast in Leave To Remain , a film directed by BAFTA-winning documentarian Bruce Goodison. Toby’s other film credits include; Red Lights, The Rite, Virginia, Sex, Drugs & Rock ‘N Roll, Creation, W, City Of Ember, St Trinians, The Mist, Nightwatching, Amazing Grace, Mrs Henderson Presents, Ladies In Lavender, Finding Neverland, Orlando and Hotel Splendide .

He has just completed filming on Matteo Garrone’s Tale Of Tales and Matthew Brown’s The Man Who Knew Infinity .

For television, Toby was nominated for a Golden Globe when he starred as the lead and famous filmmaker, ‘Alfred Hitchcock’ in The Girl for HBO and the BBC, based on the relationship between Hitchcock and actress Tippi Hedren, played by Sienna Miller. For his stellar performance, Toby was nominated for a Golden Globe in 2013 for Best Performance by an Actor in a Mini-Series or a Motion Picture Made for Television, for Best Leading Actor at the 2013 BAFTA’s and was nominated for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Miniseries or Movie at the 65 th Primetime Emmy Awards. He was also seen in Titanic , a four-part mini-series period drama based on the sinking of the RMS Titanic. His other television credits include; Christopher And His Kind (BBC), God In America (PBS), Doctor Who (BBC), MO (C4), 10 Days To War (BBC), The Old Curiosity Shop (BBC), A Harlot’s Progress (C4), Elizabeth 1 (HBO) and The Way We Live Now (BBC).

For theatre, Toby was most recently seen in Mirror Circle Transformation for the Royal Court. The play received rave reviews and Paul Taylor of the Independent stated, “Toby Jones is splendid as the pathologically awkward Schultz” . He was awarded the 2002 Laurence Olivier Theatre Award for ‘Best Actor in a Supporting Role’ for his performance in The Play What I Wrote, a musical farce written by Hamish McColl, Sean Foley and Eddie Braben, starring Foley and McColl, and directed by . The show is a celebration of the British double act Morecambe and Wise, and an irreverent and farcical exploration of the nature of double acts in general. Toby starred as ‘Arthur ’ at the Wyndham Theatre, London before the play opened on Broadway, New York after its huge success in the UK. His other theatre credits include; The Painter (Arcola Theatre), Every Good Boy Deserves Favour (Olivier Theatre), Parlour Song (Almeida Theatre) and Measure For Measure (National Theatre with Complicite).

David Dencik – Buchanan

Raised in Denmark, David Dencik graduated from Teaterhögskolan in Stockholm, Sweden in 2003, and has since become one of the most popular and respected character actors in both countries; he is fluent in both languages, and in several more besides. He spent several years at Dramaten, the esteemed National Swedish Theatre, playing a number of roles as well as performing with the Royal Danish Theatre. His many Swedish and Danish television credits include the series Wallander (SVT), Happy Life (DR1) and The Killing (DR1).

David Dencik’s first screen part, straight out of school, was in Christoffer Boe’s

Reconstruction . His big break came with the lead role in Mikael Marcimain’s 2005 TV-movie The Laser Man ; and as the transsexual Veronica in Pernille Fischer Christensen’s Soap , which won the Silver Bear at the 2006 Berlin International Film Festival and which brought Dencik a Robert Award (Danish Academy Award) for Best Actor, and a Bodil Award (Danish Critic’s Association Award) nomination.

He has since been nominated for both accolades several times, for his performances in Daniel Espinosa’s Outside Love (2007) and Nicolo Donato’s Brotherhood (2010). For his performance in Amir Chamdin’s Cornelis (2010) he was nominated for a Guldbagge Award (Sweden’s official film award, given annually since 1964 by the Swedish Film Institute), also known as the Golden Bug Award. Most recently he was nominated for the the Guldbagge for Best Supporting Role in Hotell (2014).

Named one of the year’s “Shooting Stars,” representing Denmark at the 2007 Berlin International Film Festival, David Dencik was in 2009 honoured by the Swedish Film Academy with its prestigious Kurt Linder stipend. In 2011 worldwide film audiences saw David Dencik in Thomas Alfredson’s Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy ,

Steven Spielberg’s War Horse and David Fincher’s The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo . The latter won an Academy Award while all three pictures were Oscar nominated in several categories. David Dencik was also in the original Swedish version of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo , directed by Niels Arden Oplev, but in a different role; he is the only actor to appear in both features.

In Nikolaj Arcel’s acclaimed drama A Royal Affair , Dencik played the sly and scheming Guldberg, who led the conspiracy against Struensee. The film competed in competition at the 62nd Berlin International Film Festival and was nominated for Best Foreign Language Oscar at the 85th Academy Awards.

In 2013 moviegoers could see him in Danish director Annette K. Olesen’s Skytten and in three Swedish features; Hotell , Gondolen and Vi är Bäst . He will appear in Tommy Lee Jones’ upcoming American drama The Homesman (2014) and he plays the lead role as the extrovert Henry Morgan in the upcoming

Gentlemen and TV-series Gentlemen & Gangsters (SVT, 2014), directed by Mikael Marcimain, which will premiere this autumn. This fall Dencik can also be seen in Mikkel Nørgaard’s The Absent One , the sequel to The Keeper of Lost Causes .

Next year Dencik will appear opposite Mads Mikkelsen, Nikolaj Lie Kaas and Nicolas Bro in director ’s film Mænd og Høns , and also Daniel Alfredson’s anticipated Kidnapping Freddy Heineken , where Dencik plays opposite .

Ana Ularu – Rachel

Born and educated in Bucharest Romania, Ana Ularu started out as a child actor in French television productions. She went on to star in the stage adaptation of Nabokov’s Lolita at age 16 and through that acclaimed performance started a prolific film career, with more than 25 feature film titles to her name. After graduation from the National University of Film and Drama Studies, in 2012 she was a Berlinale Shooting Star for Romania. Her most recent endeavours are a

guest starring role in the Showtime series The Borgias , Pinewood Pictures’ Camera Trap , upcoming thriller Thursday as well as Italian Sci-Fi Index Zero .

Her performance as Matilda in Bogdan George Apetri’s Outbound garnered her numerous awards for Best Actress including the Boccallino d’Oro Award at the Locarno International Film Festival, at the Novi Sad Cinema City International Film Festival, at the Thessaloniki International Film Festival and a Special Jury Mention at the Warsaw Film Festival.

Other recent films include Daniele Vicari’s Diaz ; Francis Ford Coppola’s Youth Without Youth. In 2004, Ularu was awarded a Best Actress award by the Romanian Filmmakers’ Guild and Actress of the Year by the Romanian Film Critics’ Association.

Her other theater credits include leading roles in Bulandra Theatre’s The Good Person of Sechwan , National Operetta Theatre of Bucharest’s productions of Threepenny Opera for which she won Best Leading Actress at the UNATC Awards; Odeon Theatre of Bucharest’s production of The Epic of Gilgames and numerous other plays including The Trilogy of the Atrides; Measure for Measure . On Romanian television Ularu starred in the first season of the television series One Step Forward .

About the Crew

Susanne Bier – Director

Accomplished writer and director Susanne Bier’s 2010 film won the Academy Award® for Best Foreign Language Film in 2011 as well as the Golden Globe®, the Italian Golden Globe® for Best European Film and the Best Director award at the European Film Awards.

In 2007, Bier directed the award-winning Things We Lost in the Fire , starring Halle Berry and Benicio Del Toro, her first English language film. Prior to this, as a

writer/director she had helmed the multi-award winning After the Wedding (2006), which was also Academy Award® nominated for Best Foreign Language Film; and Brothers (2004), which won, amongst others, the Audience Award at the Sundance Film Festival and the Boston Independent Film Festival.

In 2002, Bier directed , shot according to the Dogme ’95 filmmaking aesthetic. The film won numerous awards including the Audience Award at the Robert Festival (Danish Academy Award) and the International Film Critics’ Award at the Toronto International Film Festival.

Bier also co-wrote and directed the romantic comedy The One and Only (1999), which won Best Film at the Robert Awards and was the biggest domestic film in Denmark for twenty years, a fifth of the country’s population having seen it at the cinema. In 2012, Bier made her triumphant return to the genre with the 2013 winner of the European Film Award for Best Comedy, , starring and Trine Dyrholm.

Bier has recently completed production on A Second Chance with Nikolaj Coster- Waldau in the leading role.

Nick Wechsler – Producer

Nick Wechsler is an independent film producer whose producing credits are a distinctive and award-winning mix of independent and studio films. Nick Wechsler started his career as an entertainment attorney, and then transitioned into music management and film production. His clients included Robbie Robertson, Steve Earle, John Lydon, Michael Penn and Chris Whitley. He then focused on the film business and was a founder and co-chairman of "Industry Entertainment" (formerly Addis-Wechsler and Associates). "Industry" became a leading management and production company that produced feature and television motion pictures and television series and represented writers, directors, and actors, including Leonardo DiCaprio, Angelina Jolie, , Al Pacino, , Whoopi Goldberg, Benicio Del Toro, , and others. Nick Wechsler left "Industry" after fifteen years to focus on production.

Recent films include: Magic Mike , directed by Steven Soderbergh and starring Channing Tatum and Matthew McConaughey; The Road , an adaptation of Cormac McCarthy's Pullitzer Prize-winning book, directed by John Hillcoat and starring Viggo Mortensen, Charlize Theron, and Robert Duvall; Under the Skin , based on the Michael Faber novel, adapted and directed by Jon Glazer, and

starring ; The Counselor , written by Cormac McCarthy and directed by Ridley Scott, starring Michael Fassbender, Brad Pitt, Cameron Diaz, Penelope Cruz, and Javier Bardem. Wechsler’s other producing credits include The Time Traveler’s Wife, We Own the Night , a Palme d’Or selection; The Fountain , a Venice Film Festival selection; North Country , for which Charlize Theron and Frances McDormand earned Oscar and Golden Globe Award nominations; Requiem for a Dream , which earned an Independent Spirit Award Best Picture nomination and an Oscar nomination for star Ellen Burstyn; The Yards , a Cannes Film Festival Palme d’Or selection; Quills , a Best Picture winner from the National Board of Review; Eve’s Bayou , an Independent Spirit Award winner for Best First

Feature; Love Jones , a Sundance Film Festival Audience Award winner for Best Film; Little Odessa , which won the Venice Film Festival Silver Lion Award; The Player , a Golden Globe Award winner for Best Motion Picture, Comedy; and Drugstore Cowboy , which took Best Film honours from the National Society of Film Critics. Wechsler was also an executive producer of Sex, Lies and Videotape , which received the 1989 Cannes Film Festival Palme d'Or Award as well as an Academy Award nomination for Best Original Screenplay.

Ben Cosgrove – Producer

Ben Cosgrove is President of Production at 2929 Productions, where he produced Deadfall starring Eric Bana, Olivia Wilde, and Charlie Hunnam.

Ben previously served as Senior Vice President of Production at Paramount Pictures. At Paramount, he supervised Dreamgirls , The Spiderwick Chronicles , and The Fighter . Among the projects he developed were Interstellar with Chris Nolan, Dune with Peter Berg, Lost City of Z with Brad Pitt and James Gray, Nick Tungsten with Doug Liman, and What Men Want with Cameron Diaz.

Previously, Cosgrove was president of and Steven Soderbergh¹s production company Section Eight, where he produced The Good German and Rumor Has It… and served as executive producer of such films as Good Night, and Good Luck, Syriana, A Scanner Darkly, The Jacket, Criminal and Welcome to Collinwood. He also served as associate producer on Insomnia . Additional Section Eight productions include Ocean¹s Eleven, Ocean¹s Twelve, Ocean’s Thirteen, Far From Heaven and Confessions of a Dangerous Mind .

Cosgrove¹s first job in the entertainment industry was as a freelance reader at TriStar Pictures, where he ultimately became Director of Creative Affairs. At TriStar he worked on numerous projects including Jumanji, The Mask of Zorro

and Devil in a Blue Dress .

Cosgrove graduated from Columbia University with a B.A. in English Literature.

Peter McAleese – Executive Producer

Peter McAleese is a production veteran whose recent producing credits include The Gunman , directed by Pierre Morel and starring Sean Penn and Javier Bardem, the US No.1 box office hit Unknown featuring Liam Neeson , Neil Marshall’s sci-fi thriller Doomsday ; John Maybury’s The Jacket , starring Keira Knightley and Adrien Brody. For television he is currently Producing NBC Universal’s Traffic style thriller Odyssey and has recently finished work shooting an adaptation of Anita Diamant’s huge best-selling novel The Red Tent . Other international productions include disaster thriller Flood , starring Robert Carlyle and David Suchet as well as Lynda La Plante’s award-winning drama series Trial & Retribution and The Commander along with adaptations of the enormously popular ITV Agatha Christie novels A Caribbean Mystery and Greenshaw’s Folly . As Executive In Charge of Production at FilmFour, McAleese oversaw the production of many award-winning feature films, including Walter Salles’s The Motorcycle Diaries , Kevin MacDonald’s documentary Touching the Void , Gillian Armstrong’s Charlotte Gray , starring Cate Blanchett, and Shane Meadows’ Once Upon a Time in the Midlands , starring Robert Carlyle and Rhys Ifans. For Universal Pictures McAleese was Co-Producer on David Gordon Green’s big budget comedy Your Highness , Line Producer on Bridget Jones’s Diary for Working Title Films and for PolyGram Filmed Entertainment he was producer on Kevin Allen’s Twin Town and Co-Producer on the musical comedy Spice World .

Christopher Kyle – Writer

Christopher Kyle's previous writing credits on film include Oliver Stone's Alexander and two films directed by Kathryn Bigelow, K-19: The Widowmaker and The Weight of Water .

His recent projects include adaptations of Jonathan Stone's Moving Day for director Jim Sheridan and The Iron King by Maurice Druon for FX Television.

Kyle is also a playwright whose plays include Plunge and The Monogamist , both of which premiered off-Broadway at Playwrights Horizons; The Safety Net , which premiered at Broken Watch Theatre in New York; and Boca , which premiered at Charlotte Repertory Theatre. He is a past Guggenheim Fellow in drama.

Christopher Kyle is a graduate of Indiana State University and the MFA programme in playwriting at Columbia University.

Morten Soborg – Director of Photography

A long-time collaborator with Director Susanne Bier, Morten Soborg has worked as Director of Photography on Bier’s recently completed Love is All You Need ; the Academy Award® winning In a Better World ; After the Wedding ; Brothers , for which he won the Bodil Cinematography Award; Open Hearts ; Once in a Lifetime and as the Camera Operator on Things We Lost in the Fire . Sorborg is currently shooting two TV series: Broen 2 (The Bridge) and The Team .

Nominated seven times for his Cinematography at the Robert Awards (Danish Academy Award), Soborg’s most recent credits as Director of Photography include Brad Parker’s Chernobyl Diaries ; Jens Lien’s Sonner Av Norge and Nicolas Winding’s Valhalla Rising as well Winding’s Pusher I, II and III and Bleeder .

Amongst his numerous further credits as Director of Photography are Niels Grabol’s The Gift ; Soren Kragh-Jacobsen’s What No One Knows ; Tom Shankland’s W Delta Z ; Anders Ronnow’s How to Get Rid of Others , Friorik Por Frioriksson’s Niceland ; Kjel Ake Andersson’s Let’s Play House ; Oliver Ussing’s Rule No. 1 ; Anette Oelsen’s Minor Mishaps ; Jonas Elmer’s Monas Verden and Let’s Get Lost ; Katrine Wedemann’s The Lady Hamre for which he won the Silver Dolphin for Best Cinematography at the Troia International Film Festival; and Lasse Spang Olsem’s In China They Eat Dogs .

Earlier in his career, Soborg also worked as a Camera Operator and Assistant Camera on a number of productions.

Richard Bridgland – Production Designer

Richard Bridgland’s most recent film production design credits include American Ultra starring , Craig Gillespie’s Fright Night ; Jaume Collet-Serra’s Unknown , Scott Stewart’s Priest , Christian Alvart’s Pandorum as well as additional sets for Guy Ritchie’s Sherlock Holmes: Game of Shadows with whom he had previously collaborated on Rocknrolla .

Amongst his other film production design credits are Paul Anderson’s Alien vs Predator and Resident Evil ; and Paul McGuigan’s Gangster No. 1 and The Acid House .

As an Art Director, Bridgland worked on Des MacAnuff’s Cousin Bette and Richard Loncraine’s Richard III , which won a BAFTA for Best Production Design and was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Art Direction.

On television he has worked, amongst others, on Bharat Nalluri’s HBO production of Tsunami ; Tom Shankland’s television film No Night is Too Long ; and Paul Anderson’s 90 minute pilot of The Sight .

Bridgland has also worked on numerous commercials and music videos. This year he was nominated for an Art Director’s Guild Award for his designs on the David Fincher directed music video Suit and Tie , by Justin Timberlake and Jay Z.

Signe Sejlund – Costume Designer

A long-time collaborator with Director Susanne Bier, Danish born Signe Sejlund worked as a Costume Designer on Bier’s The One and Only ; Brothers ; After the Wedding ; Love is all you need and the recently completed A Second Chance .

In collaboration with Director Pernille Fischer Christensen, Sejlund worked on

Someone you Love as well as Soap , which won the Silver Bear in Berlin and for which Sejlund was nominated for a Robert Award (Danish Academy Award); Dancers ; A Family for which she was also nominated for a Robert Award.

Other Costume Design feature film credits include: Kenneth Kainz’s Couples Therapy ; Charlotte Sachs Bostrop’s Lost Generation ; Tomas Gislason’s road movie P.O.V. ; Niels Noerloev Hansen’s Klassefesten and Anja & Viktor – Flaming Love ; Carsten Mylierup’s Midsummer and Morten Lorentzen’s children’s film The Crumbs – A very Crumby Christmas . Sejlund also worked on Thomas Winterberg’s It’s All about Love as First Assistant Costume Designer.

On television, she worked on a number of Danish television series including Langt fra Las Vega s and Those who Kill.

Graham Johnston – Make-Up and Hair Designer

After graduating from Wimbledon School of Art and Design, Graham Johnston trained as a Make-Up and Hair Designer at the BBC.

His most recent film production credits include Make-Up and Hair Designer on Kasper Barfoed’s The Numbers Station ; Dean Parisot’s RED 2; Paul King’s Paddington (releasing at the end of 2014) and Pierre Morel’s The Gunman which will be released in 2015.

Amongst his numerous further Designer credits are Tommy Wirkola’s Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters ; Oliver Parker’s Johnny English Reborn ; Jaume Collett- Serra’s Unknown and Kevin Macdonald’s The Eagle ; Alfonso Cuaron’s Children of Men ; Tony Bill’s Flyboys ; Cilla Ware’s The Strange Case of Sherlock Holmes & Arthur Conan Doyle ; Sharon Maguire’s Bridget Jones’s Diary and Beeban Kidron’s Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason ; ’ Love Actually ; Peter Howitt’s Johnny English ; Metin Huseyin’s Anita and Me ; John Henderson’s Two Men Went to War ; Chris and Paul Weitz’s About a Boy ; Tony Scott’s Spy Game ; David Kane’s Born Romantic ; Michael Winterbottom’s With or Without You ; Jake Scott’s Plunkett & Macleane ; Bob Spiers’ Spice World ; Kevin Allen’s Twin Town ; and Danny Boyle’s Trainspotting and Shallow Grave .

Johnston has also worked as personal Make-Up and Hair Artist for Rachel Weisz on Peter Jackson’s The Lovely Bones , Alejandro Amenabar’s Agora and Rian Johnson’s The Brothers Bloom ; as well as Catherine Zeta Jones on Gillian Armstrong’s Death Defying Acts and Rene Zellweger on Chris Noonan’s Miss Potter and Ron Howard’s Cinderella Man . He was nominated for a BAFTA for his work as a key Hair Stylist on Ridley Scott’s Gladiator .

As a Make-up and Hair Artist, Johnston has also worked on John Duigan’s The Leading Man ; Gillies MacKinnon’s Small Faces and Maria Gieses’ When Saturday Comes amongst others.